The Abyss

The USS Montana, a nuclear submarine, sinks without explanation near a deep ocean trench in the Caribbean. The Navy recruits the civilian crew of Deepcore — a deep-sea oil drilling platform — to assist in the recovery, alongside a Navy SEAL team led by the tightly wound Lieutenant Coffey. Also along: Lindsey Brigman, the rig's designer and estranged wife of foreman Bud Brigman, who she outranks on paper and resents in practice.

From the beginning, something else is happening. The crew begins encountering NTIs — Non-Terrestrial Intelligences — luminescent, fluid-form beings that move through water like light through glass. Lindsey sees them first and knows what they are. Coffey, meanwhile, is deteriorating under depth pressure — High Pressure Nervous Syndrome stripping him of judgment and filling the gap with paranoia. He recovers a nuclear warhead from the wreck. He intends to use it.

During a catastrophic flooding incident, Bud and Lindsey find themselves in a submersible with only one diving suit and a long swim back to the rig. Lindsey insists Bud take the suit. She goes into the water and drowns. Bud drags her body back and refuses to stop — performing CPR in a prolonged, desperate scene until she comes back. She comes back.

Coffey breaks away in a submersible with the armed warhead. Bud pursues. The chase ends at the edge of the trench; Coffey's sub spirals down into the dark and is crushed. But the warhead has fallen with it. Bud volunteers to descend alone — past safe depth, past the point where his oxygen will last — to disarm it.

He reaches the bottom. He disarms the warhead. He types a farewell to Lindsey on his wrist display as his oxygen runs out. The NTIs find him there. They have been watching humanity through its own broadcasts, deciding what to do with a species capable of both Beethoven and nuclear weapons. They choose mercy. They bring Bud into their city — vast, luminous, ancient — and then they bring him back to the surface. Lindsey is there waiting. So is Bud.